ARK Survival Ascended Lost Colony: What we know so far

Modified Mar 09, 2025 23:59 IST

ark survival ascended lost colony — ARK's Lost Colony expansion will be the bridge to ARK 2 (Image via Studio Wildcard)

Lost Colony is an upcoming expansion in ARK Survival Ascended, scheduled for release sometime in November 2025, as per the latest roadmap. This is a very special content drop for ASA for two different reasons. Firstly, this is the very first original story expansion exclusive to this ARK game (meaning it is not present in ARK Survival Evolved). Secondly, and more importantly, it is a prequel of sorts that should lead to the elusive ARK 2.

Here's what we know about ARK Survival Ascended Last Colony.

Will ARK Lost Colony be a paid expansion, or free?

ARK Lost Colony will be a paid expansion for ARK Survival Ascended. Scheduled for November 2025, a pre-order window will open for it in April 2025.

While all of the ARK Survival Ascended map ports from ASE have been free add-ons, ARK Lost Colony is the first one not pooled from the original game, and thus it will be the same as a paid expansion in that game. However, Lost Colony might not be the first of its kind, as another paid premium map is planned for June 2025.

When does ARK Lost Colony take place?

ARK's Lost Colony cinematic trailer (Image via Studio Wildcard)

The first time players learned of this expansion was after the release of ASA Extinction. The canon timeline of ARK went straight from Extinction into Genesis Part 1 in the original game. However, when you defeat the King Titan boss in the new port of Extinction, you get a new animated cinematic after the credit roll, which is where ARK Lost Colony is announced.

As it's heavily implied that Lost Colony takes place on the other side of Earth right afterward, this story expansion will not modify the currently established timeline. Instead, it possibly takes place sometime between the re-seeding of Earth at the end of Extinction and Rockwell's arrival to the Genesis colony ship.

ARK Lost Colony features and setting estimation

Nothing so far has been revealed about ARK Lost Colony except for the brief cinematic. However, this features Meiyin from the animated series, meaning it's set at the end of the current plot in that series, which takes us to Arat Prime.

Arat Prime is a facility on the dark side of the Earth, so to speak. Just as the map of Extinction (Corrupted Earth) is permanently sunny, the other side is a frigid limbo stuck in an eternal night — until the events of Extinction, that is. This elusive part of the map has been alluded to in the lore but never featured directly in-game.

The permaforst in permanent nighttime would also be a nice segue to do some theme-appropriate new tame ideas. In other words, this is the perfect power ramp for the developers to make ASA's first canon map truly exceptional and memorable.

Regarding the DLC, the developers said in Community Crunch 440 that:

"ARK: Lost Colony drops this November, with pre-orders starting in April, when you’ll be able to enhance your immediate survival with early access to new gameplay systems and exclusive content."

"New gameplay systems" is something players would probably expect even without an announcement, as map-specific gimmicks are part and parcel of the game. However, seeing as this specific one acts as a prequel to ARK 2 and considering the fact that we're possibly going to play as Meiyin rather than Santiago, a very optimistic interpretation would be that Studio Wildcard is going to try out the oft-discussed Souls-like ARK 2 mechanics.

That's all we know about ARK Lost Colony at the moment. More information will be revealed in April 2025, so check back again later!

Meanwhile, here are some of our other ASA guides:

Edited by Niladri Roy